Chapter 541: Chapter 81
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
It was no harm for Sui Xiong to be sure that his soul had traveled. At least he could stop thinking about where his body was going.
Sui Xiong soon put down the matter of where his body was and got busy with other things.
In fact, he had a lot of things to do, but all of them were delayed because he wanted to find his body. Now that he was sure that it was not his body but his soul that had traveled, he could do something else.
The first thing he wanted to do was steel-making. Thanks to Palin and after decades of research, the technology of blast furnaces had gradually matured.
Palin was inspired by the fact that when wood burned in charcoal, the temperature was much higher, and so tried to calcine coal as well. Many mistakes had been made and countless time and materials had been wasted during the calcining process, but finally, Palin found some solutions.
He used graphite in the end, which burned at a much higher temperature than ordinary coal.
With graphite, the most critical step in steel-made blast furnaces was completed. Next, he only had to finish some designs and improvement work. Palin and a group of craftsmen thought for many years, and finally, they succeeded in building a blast furnace.
This blast furnace could not supply both raw materials and molten iron at the same time, and this was different from what Sui Xiong had imagined. It needed to mix the raw materials in advance, put them together like building blocks in the furnace and then start burning. But after a short time, the high temperature produced by graphite would melt iron ores and other raw materials into molten iron.
Depending on the special design, the molten iron in the lower layer could be poured out and cooled into ingots in mud tanks. The slag in the upper layer needed to be removed by special tools or cleaned up after the furnace was cooled.
Although it took a lot of effort to clean the furnace each time, after Palin’s thorough research and experiments, he had been able to solidify the molten iron directly into steel without further processing.
This had saved a lot of time and efforts. What’s more, it also made up for all the time and manpower wasted in other areas.
More importantly, the ingots produced by this method were very uniform in texture. When using those ingots as raw materials to make equipment, there was no need to worry about such problems as the materials not being uniform enough.
Moreover, as long as proper molds were used when cooling the molten iron, various shapes of rough steel could be produced. That rough steel could directly become suitable weapons, armors or tools after further processing.
Palin tried to make some steel plates and then used the hydraulic press invented by Sui Xiong to stamp the steel plates. As a result, they had made some very good steel breastplates with little effort.
Those breastplates were more uniform and stronger than ordinary hand-forged, steel breastplates. But the time it took to make them was far less than that of making the hand-forged steel breastplates.
In the past, it took at least more than half a month for a master blacksmith and his four or five apprentices to make such a breastplate. Now, with sufficient materials and the help of a hydraulic press, a master blacksmith and his four or five apprentices could make six or seven such breastplates in a day.
“That’s really a good source of money!” Palin said happily when reporting to Sui Xiong. “As long as we find enough iron ore, coal mines and mineral veins of auxiliary materials, find a relatively stable and turbulent river and some helpers, I am sure that in half a year, we will produce enough armor for an army!”
Sui Xiong was also happy, but he was not thinking about making weapons and armor. He was glad that it could speed up the production of the tools.
With the development of the Northwest Republic, more and more people lived here, and more tools were needed. But depending only on imports would cost a lot of money and time. People had to wait a long time for the goods to be produced and transported, causing them to be upset.
Now, with a blast furnace and sufficient steel, more tools could be produced.
Sui Xiong believed that when the skeleton laborers used the new steel tools, their work efficiency would be greatly improved, and the construction speed of the Northwest Republic would be greatly accelerated.
Before traveling to this world, Sui Xiong had once heard a saying that went, “if the country is a machine, then the steel industry is the engine of the machine.” This, of course, had to have been said by some science students. Although Sui Xiong was an art student, he also thought that saying was reasonable.
With sufficient steel, they could produce more and better tools, and the national construction speed would certainly become faster!
Now, Sui Xiong even began to wonder whether it was suitable for him to develop something like tractors.
Of course, Sui Xiong could not do that scientific research by himself. Facts had proved that it was unreliable for an art student to do scientific research. Although Sui Xiong was very powerful, he was not as good as the research team led by Palin.
This kind of thing still needed professional people to do it.
“Hmm? Do you want to make tools instead of armor?” Palin was very surprised when Sui Xiong gave that order. “Tools are not as valuable as armor.”
“Yeah, tools are not worth much, but we need them,” Sui Xiong said. “I need thousands of picks, hoes, axes, and hammers… Which country do you think can supply us so much?”
Palin was shocked by the number and asked curiously, “Why… Do we have that many workers?”
Sui Xiong was also stunned for a moment. Apart from some work from the Magic Corps and the Magic a.s.sociation that he could not avoid, he had devoted himself to research. He had spent most of his time and materials on the research of blast furnaces and steel-making. He did not even know that the Northwest Republic had used that many skeleton laborers.
So he told Palin about this.
“Oh… Very good! Those skeleton laborers don’t need a salary or rest, and plus, there are so many of them. Isn’t that perfect?” Palin asked. “Why do you think there would be a problem, Your Majesty?”
Sui Xiong was silent for a moment and told Palin the reactions of all good G.o.ds to this matter.
“That’s ridiculous! We haven’t transformed human corpses into skeletons. We just used the resources of the Ashes Woods,” Palin was furious suddenly. “When there were so many skeletons in the Ashes Woods, why didn’t they clear up those skeletons?! Why do they feel angry when we use skeletons to do things? That’s unreasonable!”
Palin said angrily, “Your Majesty, I think your plan should be adjusted. Instead of making tools first, we might as well make a large number of weapons and armor first, Then we don’t have to sell them. We should first change our army’s equipment, and the rest of the weapons and armor will be displayed near the portal to show them our strength!”
Sui Xiong was stunned for a moment, and then he couldn’t help but applaud Palin’s idea.
“That’s a very good idea!”